'Unseen' News and Views
(Greenpeace International)* — Last year, the city of Cape Town narrowly averted day zero – the day the city’s water taps would run dry. Many of the city’s four million residents patiently joined lines to receive their water ration, as the city desperately worked to restrict water usage in the weeks leading up to day zero.
An interview with Francesca O’Hanlon, founder of Blue Tap
22 March 2019 (UN Environment)* — This year’s World Water Day on 22 March celebrates water for all. It is a human right to have access—without discrimination—to sufficient, safe, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use.
Yet billions of people around the world still do not have access to safely managed drinking water. Contaminated water can transmit a variety of diseases, such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. Innovations around water safety and quality are therefore crucial to human health.
22 March 2019 (UN)* — Water is an essential building block of life. It is more than just essential to quench thirst or protect health; water is vital for creating jobs and supporting economic, social, and human development..
The theme for World Water Day 2019 is ‘Leaving no one behind,’ which is the central promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: as sustainable development progresses, everyone must benefit.
Geneva (UN Water)* — Access to water and sanitation is internationally recognized human right. Yet more than two billion people lack even the most basic of services.
A lack of safe water, is far deadlier for children than war in more than a dozen conflict-affected countries, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Thursday [21 March 2019], in a report launched to coincide with World Water Day, marked on 22 March.*
UNICEF’s 16-nation study into how water supplies effect children caught up in emergencies, also shows that children under-five are on average more than 20 times more likely to die from illnesses linked to unsafe water and bad sanitation, than from conflict.
An ambitious new conservation programme brings six nations together to ensure the future of one of the world’s most vital ecosystems.
21 March 2019 (UN Environment)* — One of the world’s most vital ecosystems is set to take a step closer to a sustainable future, with the announcement of a US$63-million programme to stabilize forest cover, peatlands, and wildlife populations across the Congo Basin.
Bamako, 19 March 2019 (IOM)* – Gold is Mali’s top export, accounting for at least 60 per cent of the country’s total exports in 2017 and making Mali the third gold exporter in Africa, just after South Africa and Ghana. Small-scale, informal and low-tech mining also known as artisanal mining, although largely unregulated, accounts for at least one third of Mali’s total gold production.
Loveth is one of the thousands Nigerian victims of trafficking living in Koflatiè, a shantytown located in a mining area, in Southwestern Mali. Photo: IOM/François-Xavier Ada-Affana
20 March 2019 (UN Women)* — Over 2.5 billion women and girls around the world are affected by discriminatory laws—laws that impede gender equality and hold women and girls back. In too many countries, there are unequal standards for women and men, whether it’s for applying for a passport or in the choice of employment, receiving inheritance and deciding when and whom to marry.
UN Environment, Google, the European Commission and partners aim to “leave no one behind” on World Water Day, launching a groundbreaking data platform to track the world’s water bodies—and countries’ progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
21 March 2019 (UN Environment)* — For the traditional Himba people in arid northern Namibia, life looks much as it did hundreds of years ago.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 